Archive | Holidays

I’ve been working on a little (almost, not sure if it is really) Fair Isle colour work for a Valentine heart coaster, you could even attach some yarn and make it into a picture to hang up or make a little banner with a few of these attached to it, or a garland. I haven’t written a pattern for colour work before, so please bare with me, I hope it makes sense, if not just send me an email and I will answer any questions:) lindadawkins@mweb.co.za Also if you find any errors do let me know and I will sort them out.

Here we go:

Materials:Oddments of beige and red hand spun or DK yarn, DK would look better as it is even.4mm straight needlesNeedle for sewing in ends

Sew in all your ends and block by dampening your coaster slightly with water and then pinning it into a square shape with pins on a suitable surface, remove when dry.And there you go.I am sure this would be much easier as a chart, still working on learning how to chart patterns:)Happy Monday and enjoy knitting:)Linda

Welcome to Creative Friday!We have just returned home from an amazing holiday in a town called Clarens, situated in the Free State in South Africa. What a gorgeous place to visit! We hiked, went to look at rock art, browsed through antique stores, Erin and Caiden went down a zip line and even did some mountain biking. We loved every minute of it.Here are some photos from our holiday.

The view from our bedroom window at dusk.

Ahh, the view from our bedroom, so wonderful, a perfect knitting spot. The mountains in the distance and the tall trees made me feel so happy. We have decided to return here soon, during the winter months…

The is a photo of the gorgeous sandstone home we stayed at called ‘The View’ it has the most magnificent garden, fruit trees laden with fruit and beautiful blossoming flowers everywhere…

I can see why they named this house ‘The View’…

We even discovered a pothole that has formed under a small waterfall…

Can you see the face on this rock?

Erin and Caiden went down a zipline!

This is the homestead at the Schaapplaats farm, we hiked here to see the San Rock Art paintings, they are over 600 years old and so beautiful.

A beautiful San rock art painting…

To add this button to your blog, right click on it and ‘save picture as’ to your photos. Then add it as a gadget / picture to your blog on your blogs design page with a link to my blog address:)

About Creative Friday:

Thank you so much to everyone who shares the love and posts their links to their amazing work:) Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry…etc…

I also love to hear from you, so if you have a moment, please leave a comment:) Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us! Just add the name of your blog to the widget and then add your blog link with the http:// at the beginning of your link address:) I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)

1. I have started a Creative Friday Flickr Group where you can post your beautiful photos that you link to each Creative Friday, to join the group, please go here.

Yay!! Thanks so much to those who have joined the Creative Friday Flickr Group, it is wonderful to see your photos!

2. If you would be so kind as to link back to Natural Suburbia in your blog post that would be lovely:)

We have just returned from the most wonderful holiday in the bush!! It was heaven… We decided to go for Caiden’s 10th birthday as a surprise. He was thrilled, as was everyone else. We were all so sad that we had to make our way home today, I could easily just live out there. The one thing that I enjoy the most is the silence. As soon as I arrive, I always go straight outside and just listen… it’s quiet, so quiet, you can hear it… We walked, saw lovely game, different birds and the flowers… so beautiful, just growing out of the red earth, a tiny stalk and then a flower. I took plenty of photos, we climbed rocks, road our bikes and just re-charged…

I loved every minute of it, I was so inspired, I even knitted up a new animal design while I was there. I have included quite a few snapshots of our last four days to share with you.

Searching for Meerkat burrows, we found the burrows but not the meerkats:)

I sat and knitted in this spot, watching the game passing by in the valley…

Gorgeous flowers just erupt out of the dry, red and sandy landscape…

Each day, we had the most spectacular sunsets and watched as the moon rose from the rocky hill behind the house…

We climbed up to the old Boer ruins, how amazing to think that people built these walls so many years ago, I love history…

Lichen grows everywhere…

Beauty…

Caiden climbed up the spot height…

See, a flower stalk and then suddenly, a beautiful flower…

This Wildebeest was watching us closely and snorting through his nose…

Playing in the mud in the trout dams…

Richard rode his bike…

The end of our adventure…

On another note, our youngest little one Kye has to go in for a small procedure tomorrow morning, nothing serious, but he will be having anesthetic and my stomach is in a knot! If you have a moment to send healing thoughts tomorrow, that would be greatly appreciated:)

Thanks to everyone who has entered my latest giveaway:) It closes this Wednesday, on my 39th birthday, so if you haven’t yet entered you can go to this post and leave a comment.Take carexoLinda

There is great excitement here in our home today, because tomorrow we will be setting off on our road trip! We will first be driving to the Drakensburg, which is in the mountains, then we will make our way down to the South Coast for a week at the beach and then we will be staying in the Midlands Meander for 2 days and then onward home:) I think the children had already finished packing at the beginning of the week, they are so excited. We are taking our mountain bikes with to ride along a few of the trails and we are packing a trailer full of things we need.

I have been trying to decide what knitting I should take with, because of course there hasto be knitting, but what to take, hmmmm…….. I think I am finally going to finish my Shalom Cardigan, I can’t wait, actually:) and I can also get a head start on some of my handmade Christmas gifts too. The girls have already packed some handwork and I have planned packs for each child for the car with activities for them to do while we are driving…

It is going to be a little quite here for a little while, but don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for Creative Friday because I will put that up before we set off in the morning, thanks a million to all of you who come over each Friday and share their amazing creativity!